


Last Resorts

by buckysbears (DrZebra)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bus Kids - Freeform, Gen, Reunited and It Feels So Good, except not really, it's mostly still sad and a little desperate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 10:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8282522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrZebra/pseuds/buckysbears
Summary: Continuation of the 4x04 sneak peek





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agentcalliope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentcalliope/gifts).



> Wow writing fic after so long of working on the novel felt good! thanks to everyone who's been very patient with me. I couldn't help but write something based off that sneak peek though ... holy gosh. i'm sure people have already written this but here's my version

The only sounds in the apartment are the soft wisps of noise that comes from the thread pulling through the wound Jemma is stitching in Daisy’s shoulder, and soft, labored breathing. It’s not a good combination of sounds, Jemma thinks, and one she never would’ve thought she would get used to. She was never meant to be a medical doctor, after all. She’d learned to do stitches when she was a child, just for fun, just in case, but she never really thought she’d use them. She’d been wrong. She’d been wrong about a lot of things.

“So you got my emails,” Jemma says, just to fill the space with some other sound.

Daisy turns her head to look at her over the wounded shoulder. “What?”

“You didn’t honestly think I was emailing Fitz in that much detail, did you?” Jemma holds the wound closed with one gloved hand, dabs at it with a bloodied rag with the other. “How my day was, what I think of the new recruits. I see him almost every day, kind of foolish to include all that in an email when I can just tell him, don’t you think?”

Daisy turns back around, nods slightly. She taps out a rhythm on her knee. “Should’ve figured.”

“Never could get Fitz to email back,” Jemma says, not really paying attention to what she’s saying, just talking for the sake of talking, “he thought the whole thing was silly. But, I don’t know. It made me feel better. We might not have heard back, but I still felt like I was doing something. Reaching you, somehow.”

“He’s mad at me.”

“Hmm?”

“Fitz. He yelled at me, on the quinjet. I don’t really blame him.”

Jemma pushes a sigh through her nose, snipping the edge of a stitch. “He told me about that. He’s not mad. I know it seems like he is, but he’s not. He’s just … scared.”

“Seemed mad.” Daisy winces as the needle is hooked through her skin once again. “So do you, frankly, and I’m not just talking about the ‘taking a needle to me’ thing.”

It’s the most she’s said since she arrived, and it sounds like it pains her, stringing together that many words in Jemma’s presence, sounding too close to her old self.

“Oh, I’m furious,” Jemma confirms. “But I thought I’d done so well at hiding it. I’m being extra gentle and everything.”

“You don’t have to hide it,” Daisy says, visibly steeling herself. “Whatever you’re mad about, I deserve it.”

“Unclench. I’m trying to sew you up, and you’re not helping.”

“Sorry,” Daisy mumbles.

“And I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at a lot of people—myself, namely—but I’m not mad at you. I’m hurt, I’m scared, I’m worried … but I’m not mad.”

Daisy turns her head again, but she won’t look at Jemma. She hasn’t looked at Jemma since she first walked into the apartment, since Jemma left her bleeding in the bathtub with a phone pressed into her hand to go get supplies. Jemma knows what this is. It’s guilt, which she’s carried around herself like a second heartbeat for years. Daisy looks somewhere around her chin. “Why are you mad at yourself?”

Jemma screws up her nose. “For being surprised. That we’d meet again this way.”

“I’m sorry …”

“I imaged us meeting again a hundred different ways,” Jemma continues, like she hasn’t heard her. “I imagined that you’d show up at the base one day, either having forgiven yourself or ready to start trying. I imagined that you’d find us while we were out on assignment, and you wouldn’t want to come back with us yet, but you’d just wanted to check in. I imagined that we’d be in danger, and something miraculous would happen, and we might not even see you, but we’d know you were watching out for us.” Jemma’s hands have stilled, though she isn’t sure when it happened. She shakes her head and starts working again. “It’s silly, what you cling to when you can’t sleep at night. But I knew, really truly knew, in my heart, that this is how it was going to be. That you’d be in trouble, and we’d be your last resort.”

Daisy opens her mouth to speak, and Jemma knows it’s going to be another apology. She doesn’t want to hear it, so she cuts her off.

“And I’m not mad about that. Because I never, ever would imagine taking that away from you, Daisy. No matter what happens between us, I will always be here when you need me, in whatever way you need me. I’m just mad that … that I was still surprised, when it really happened. I guess a little part of me was still holding onto the inane hope that things would be different. But that’s not on you, that’s on me. That’s all on me.”

“I don’t think it is,” Daisy says quietly.

“Am I allowed to ask what happened?”

“What?” Daisy asks.

Jemma pokes her shoulder, far enough away from the wound that it’s not likely to hurt, thought it might be tender.

Daisy considers. “Watchdogs,” she finally settles on.

“We’ve been running into some trouble with them ourselves. So … it wasn’t this ‘Ghost Rider’ I’ve been hearing so much about?”

“No,” Daisy grits out.

“Okay, just asking.” Jemma sets her scissors down on the counter. She walks over to run the rag under the cold water of the sink, then comes back to wipe away the last of the blood that coats Daisy’s skin. Daisy shivers as the droplets of water run down her bare back.

“Sorry,” Jemma mumbles. “I’m almost done here. I just need to bandage it up, then you can be on your way.”

“Okay,” Daisy says.

Jemma dries the area with a paper towel, then places a bandage over the area. She rips medical tape with her teeth and makes sure the bandage will stay down. She then pulls the last item out of her plastic shopping bag.

“I got you a new shirt, thought the one you were wearing is probably trash.”

Daisy takes the shirt, spreading it out in front of her. “’Donut’ talk to me,” she reads aloud. The ‘o’ in donut is the image of a chocolate donut, covered in glitter.

“It’s the only one they had that was a suitable size,” Jemma apologizes. “I got it a little baggy, I don’t want your shirt rubbing on the bandage too much.”

“Thanks,” Daisy says, and carefully pulls it over her head, barely moving her injured arm.

“You’d probably do well to cast that until it heals properly.” Jemma holds herself back from rubbing a finger down the bruises.

“It’s fine.” Daisy says, standing. She pulls her jacket back on, and then stands in front of Jemma, as if waiting for something. She opens her mouth, and then closes it.

“That bandage will need to be changed in the morning.” Jemma is watching her carefully, though Daisy still won’t look right at her. “If you don’t find someone else to change it, I’ll be here at eight.”

“Thank you.” Daisy risks a glance at her eyes, and quickly looks away. “And … I’m sorry. For everything.”

“I know you are.” Jemma rubs her thumbs over her closed fists. “But you don’t have to be. I don’t need that, and I don’t want it. I want you to be safe, I want you to be happy. I don’t want you to be sorry. And I … I want you to come back home.”

Daisy’s lips press together in a thin line. “I don’t think I can do that.”

Jemma lets out a breathy sigh. “I’ve been where you are. Running away because you think it’s for the best. Because you think that’s what other people would want. But it’s not helping anyone, not really, not in the end. In the end it’s really about punishing yourself. About making yourself hurt because you think you deserve it, because not enough people have told you you don’t.”

Daisy’s gaze drifts down to her arm, bruises wrapped around it like vines. “I do deserve it.”

“You don’t. You never have. Not a single time you’ve ever hurt in your life have you deserved it. And I’ll tell that to you again tomorrow, and every day I have to until you believe it.”

Tears fill Daisy’s eyes, though her face remains carefully blank. Her breath rattles in through her nose. “I have to go,” she says, and carefully sidesteps Jemma on her way to leave, making no contact. Jemma longs to grab Daisy’s wrist, to pull her into a hug and feel Daisy’s warmth envelop her, to breathe in the scent of her hair, to just know that she’s alive, and know that for as long as she remains in Jemma’s arms she’s going to stay that way.

But Jemma doesn’t reach out. She just says, as Daisy’s hand reaches the doorknob, “I’ll see you at eight.”

Daisy pauses, her shoulders shaking, and nods. And then she walks out the door.

For a long few minutes Jemma just stands in the empty apartment. Half of her mind is screaming not to think, to just let the seconds pass by. The other half is thinking about where in the little apartment they would put the couch, the couch that Daisy would help them pick out, is thinking about teaching Daisy to make pancakes on the stove in the little kitchen, is wondering how much of their closet space Daisy could take up before Fitz would complain (all of it, probably. He’d let her have it all). She thinks about the apartment filled with the three of them, filled with life.

The only evidence proving that Daisy was here is the bloody rag. Jemma picks it up off the counter and tosses it into the sink, and then grips the stainless steel edges and lets out one loud sob. But that’s all she’ll allow herself, is just the one, so she wipes her eyes, rinses out the rag, and goes home. She’ll be back tomorrow.


End file.
